


Can’t Help But Realise

by Kyrios (orphan_account)



Series: BNHA/HS Crossovers [3]
Category: Homestuck, 僕のヒーローアカデミア | Boku no Hero Academia | My Hero Academia
Genre: Crack Treated Seriously, Crossover, Fluff, M/M, The Author Regrets Nothing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-15
Updated: 2018-07-15
Packaged: 2019-06-10 22:46:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,173
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15301707
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/Kyrios
Summary: On their first day as U.A. seniors, Aizawa brings class A two things: one of them just happens to be American exchange student Dave Strider.





	Can’t Help But Realise

**Author's Note:**

> i really fucking did it again huh
> 
> again. aze (@azreto on twitter and tumblr) did all the work. he even drew art for this and i’m? i lob him. thank you aze for letting me desecrate your crackships
> 
> TITLE IS FROM ME + YOU VS THE WORLD BY THE BARENAKED LADIES, which was all i listened to writing this
> 
> ok yeah that’s all i guess

On their first day as U.A. seniors, Aizawa brings class A two things:

The first is a half-hearted promise he’ll be tougher, more unforgiving with his tests, than he’s been for the past couple years. Something about how their last year of high school will be the real test of whether they can handle the pro hero lifestyle.

The second is American exchange student Dave Strider.

* * *

Dave is… Overwhelmingly foreign. He introduces himself with a wonky bow and heavily accented Japanese. Texan, born and raised, his chosen hero name is Aion, and he’s keeping his Quirk to himself until he gets to actually use it. 

As soon as he says that, Aizawa, very conveniently, announces a pop quiz. Practical. A simple physical assessment, a single round of one-on-one Quirk practice. Hushed chatter fills the room—Aizawa’s known for never letting students pick their partners, not after he caught some weird grade fixing scheme from Denki and Mina, and everyone wants to know who’s going to witness the new kid’s power firsthand.

“Midoriya, you’re fighting me so nobody’s without a partner. Kaminari and Aoyama, the two of you. Todoroki, work with Yaoyorozu. Satou and Uraraka. Shouji and Jirou. Bakugou, pair up with Strider—”

“Who?” Katsuki looks up from his textbook.

Ochako elbows him. “Kacchan, you’re with the new student!”

“We have a new student?” His eyes scan the classroom and land on the smirking douchebag standing next to Aizawa. “Why is this asshole wearing sunglasses indoors, anyway?”

“Man, you’re so rude!” Eijirou pipes up.

“Whatever,” Katsuki grunts. He jumps out of his seat, aggressively pushes his way through the staring students and out of the room.

Dave’s still silent, watching the scene unfold. His shades hide essentially any sign of non-mocking emotion he may or may not feel, but Ochako reassures him anyway: “He’s always like that, don’t worry! It’s nothing personal!”

“No worries,” he says, smile still tugging at his lips. He heads to Ground Alpha more relaxed than anyone bound to fight Bakugou has any right to be; his strut turns heads and makes people wonder what exactly he’s capable of.

* * *

Dave comes out of the changing rooms wearing a knight outfit straight out of a tawdry fairy tale. He’s still got the stupid sunglasses on, and it creates a tacky picture that makes him look not like a hero, but a kid in a silly costume.

To top off the chivalrous theme he’s going for, he’s got a weapon to go with it. Katsuki hasn’t seen heroes using classical arms in a very long time, but Dave draws a ridiculously shiny sword from the leather scabbard attached to his belt.

“You ready?” Dave asks. He swings the sword around like it’s as light as a feather. When Katsuki squints, he can make out a name, Durendal, neatly carved into the blade.

He scoffs. “Catch me if you can, showoff,” and shoots himself up in the air with a strong blast, high enough to see the wall surrounding the forest.

Ground Alpha isn’t designed after urban environments like most other training areas: it’s essentially a camping ground, used with increasing frequence after the incidents a couple years before. It’s mostly flat, but dense with trees, which make it harder for Katsuki to attack from the sky—but harder has never been a deterrent to him, and he fires an AP shot right where he calculates Dave should be standing.

It doesn’t hit. Dave sprints to the Westernmost plains, still swinging the damn blade in circles, and Katsuki fires a few small blasts to catch up to him. Flinging himself through the air is freeing, not-so-seamless flight generously granted to him by his Quirk, but it doesn’t feel as relaxing this time. He’s wary, constantly a step behind Dave, because he just doesn’t know what he’s up against, and he hates that kind of disadvantage.

If Dave’s ambitious enough to be granted an U.A. scholarship for a year out of his home country, then he must be dedicated. And if he is, he already knows the ins and outs of Katsuki’s Quirk, a drawback of the Sports Festival. He’s got all his cards laid out on the table, but Dave isn’t giving him anything to play by.

He lands on his knees, ungracious but still with his guard up. Katsuki’s not stupid, he knows he can’t fight every battle from a high place. His hand-to-hand combat has improved a lot since he started sparring with Eijirou, and he knows he’s got the potential to best some brash newcomer with a sword, dammit.

Dave runs towards him, and Katsuki stretches out his arm, ready to shoot an explosion strong enough to knock him back a few metres—

And suddenly Dave’s behind him, the flat of his blade pressed against Katsuki’s neck.

“Do you yield?”

“What?” Katsuki gasps, and he can’t, shouldn’t be taken off-guard: he’s a hero, and heroes stand tall in the face of adversity. But Dave was there and then he just—wasn’t. He considers the possibility of superhuman velocity, given his cape was still swishing by inertia when he ambushed Katsuki, but it’s not a satisfying enough answer; he’s known Tenya for years now, and even the fastest heroes can’t blink behind someone like that.

It doesn’t make sense. Katsuki scans his whole body for any changes, any Quirk after-effects, that can explain his current predicament.

Dave looks exactly the same as before; shades firmly perched on his nose, cocky smirk in place. Identical to five minutes ago.

Except for his belt buckle, wrenched open to reveal a gold-plated clock, its hands perfectly still.

The blade pushes harder, makes him choke on his heavy breaths. Katsuki taps out, a skill he’s forcibly learned through Aizawa’s sermons. Dave lets him go.

Katsuki falls to the ground with a disgruntled huff. “Fucking time powers,” he groans. Fuck, it was his first time against this kid, this kid who surely knows the reputation preceding the one and only Katsuki Bakugou, and yet—he cried uncle like a lowly loser.

“Hell yeah,” Dave drawls. His voice sounds different, deeper, when he speaks his native language. He sheathes the Durendal and offers Katsuki a hand up.

He begrudgingly takes it, avoiding Dave’s eyes at all costs. The dirt surrounding him seems very interesting all of a sudden.

When he’s on his feet, Dave settles back into his (adorable, infuriating, Katsuki doesn’t know) accented Japanese. “I try to hide the time motif, to take people by surprise. But I really need the clock to use my Quirk.”

“Why?” Katsuki doesn’t know why he’s genuinely interested. God, if Ochako were here to witness this, she’d never let him off the hook ever again.

“Else I jump into some freaky future and I get coloniser alien babes all over me,” Dave deadpans.

Katsuki rolls his eyes.

Dave snorts. “Okay, for real,” he continues. “My Quirk is pretty fucking unstable. The clock puts a lid on all that shit and slows me down a bit. Don’t tell anyone I said that, though. That’s just between you and me, bro.”

“Who the fuck would I even tell that to?”

“Everyone and their mother who’s been trying to get a peek at Davey’s huge assets?”

“Don’t call it—whatever. I won’t tell, I guess. Should I tell you something about my Quirk?”

“If you don’t like going uneven,” Dave says. “Sure, bro. Lay it all on me. I love spicy secrets from superstar student Katsuki Bakugou.”

The problem is Katsuki’s got nothing public that Dave shouldn’t already know from the media. “I’ll tell you, but it’s confidential, so shut your fucking trap,” he grunts. “I’ve been working on some blueprints for a new costume. Something that lets me safely go boom from the rest of my body, in case my hands are restrained.”

Dave chuckles. “Don’t tell me you’re planning on literally blasting your ass off, because that’s fucking hilarious and I want front row tickets.”

“That’s not—fuck off.”

* * *

They walk back to the class’ rendezvous point together, though Katsuki vehemently avoids any interaction with Dave. Aizawa is the only one there, and he quirks an eyebrow at their early arrival.

“Already?” Aizawa asks. “I hope this went the way I expected.”

Dave opens his mouth to reply, but Katsuki speaks up before he can, sharp as always: “It didn’t.”

“Do you know what I expected, Bakugou?” Aizawa says. He points to the shallow nick on Katsuki’s neck, so small it’s almost unnoticeable. “Unless that’s the most pathetic shaving accident of all time, this fight went exactly as I’d imagined.”

The joke makes Dave laugh, his first show of outward emotion since his arrival. Katsuki sneers. “Shithead,” he mumbles.

“Manners,” Aizawa scolds, though this is a war long lost. He nods approvingly at Dave. “Good job. Not a lot of people can hold this one down.”

“Thank you. It wasn’t that hard, if I’m honest. I had the surprise element going there.”

“That’s right, you did,” Katsuki spits. “I’m going to kick your ass back to America next time, mark my fucking words.”

Someone pipes up behind them. “Dude, you’re so vintage today!” It’s Eijirou—of course it is. “All grumpy and rude. Loosen up a bit, will you? We need to give our new friend a warm welcome!”

“Fuck off,” Katsuki says.

Eijirou ignores his remark, as always. He walks up to Dave and fistbumps him. Katsuki gapes. When did they get so buddy-buddy with each other? (Katsuki reminds himself that, in all fairness, it’s fucking Eijirou. He can befriend anyone in ten seconds flat.)

“Bet you didn’t think Kacchan was the same in real life as he was on TV, huh?”

“Yeah, but nobody told me about that nickname,” Dave snorts. “How was your training, bro? Get your lilly ass kicked?”

“Nah, I was paired with Tooru,” Eijirou says. “She’s really sneaky, don’t get me wrong, but once I caught her she was done for!”

“Hey!” A pair of boots whines.

Katsuki presses his hands firmly to his temples. God, he can already feel a migraine brewing. He could do perfectly without another asshole to pester him on a daily basis, and yet…

His third year at U.A comes into his life. And so does Dave Strider, with his trashy knight outfit and time travel Quirk.

* * *

Outside Quirk exercises, Dave is… Fine. Not exactly unnoticeable, because he does manage to stand out in a class where someone’s got a fucking red pineapple for a hairstyle, but he doesn’t get on Katsuki’s nerves on a daily basis. He occupies himself with homework and his phone: texting friends back in America, he says, and nobody inquires further. Eijirou and Mina get closer to him, and every week they goad Katsuki into going out, the four of them, to get food or waste time at the local arcade.

It’s shitty and annoying and pointless, of course, but—Katsuki starts somewhat enjoying it, even when Mina is busy catching up with assignments or Eijirou wants to stay at the dorms to do weight training.

Katsuki doesn’t know if it’s intentional, but at some point it goes from squad time to just Katsuki-and-Dave time, and it doesn’t piss him off as much as he’d anticipated.

He learns a lot about Dave: that he’s got a creepy, borderline evil sister who he loves a lot; that he also has a brother who chose engineering over a hero career, despite his really strong Quirk; that without the clock on his belt he can hop around in time erratically, and that he’s been stuck in the past longer than anyone could possibly enjoy. In return, Katsuki opens up to him, about being an only child and his weird family, his once-taboo childhood friendship with Deku. He talks about having a crush on Eijirou for a while, just to gauge Dave’s reaction, but he gets nothing.

They’re, by every definition of the word, friends. And Katsuki wonders when Dave stopped being so goddamn annoying all the time.

* * *

By midterms, they have a solid joint study schedule. Dave’s the first person to actually comply with Katsuki’s demanding habits, and it’s… Nice? Peaceful? Katsuki’s never had anyone willing to settle into his harsh modus operandi before, and it’s a feeling he can’t quite put into words.

The frequent practice and hopping between languages makes Katsuki’s English grades go up, so much that even Present Mic compliments him on his fast improvement. Dave smirks and asks for Katsuki’s eternal gratitude in return; he gets a “fuck you,” but also a mumbled “thanks, I guess,” and that’s good enough.

* * *

They celebrate winter break with Momo’s (heavenly, but Katsuki would never own up to thinking so) homemade popcorn and a crappy movie, courtesy of one of Dave’s American friends. It’s not Katsuki’s first time in Dave’s room, but it still feels a lot more important than before. It’s just the two of them, for one, and actually lying on Dave’s bed is—well.

Katsuki isn’t much of a romance person. He doesn’t have time to pursue it, or to watch cheesy romantic comedies and swoon over white guys in suits. But even someone as inexperienced as he is can notice the intimacy in cozying up under someone else’s blankets.

The wall behind them is covered in polaroids, snapshots of Dave’s life scattered around in no particular order. There’s Dave squished between a smirking girl and a boy with ridiculous shades (his siblings, Katsuki knows) and multiple pictures of him alongside a tall girl with fuzzy dog ears. Some of the older shots include a bucktoothed kid with his arm across Dave’s shoulders, and Katsuki doesn’t know if he’s supposed to feel jealous.

“Shit, you’re not in there, are you?” Dave cuts through his loud, loud thoughts. “We gotta fix that. Give me a hot sec.”

“What?” Katsuki says, but before he can process the situation, Dave gets up and takes an old instantaneous camera from one of his drawers.

He turns the rewind crank to check if he’s got any film loaded and jumps back on the bed, slinging an arm around Katsuki’s waist. “Nothing like the good ol’ brolaroid to cement a friendship. Ready?” Dave asks.

He doesn’t wait for Katsuki’s answer; he stretches out his arm, holding the camera backwards, and right before snapping the picture—

Dave leans in and presses a firm kiss to Katsuki’s cheek.

The film slides out and Dave backs off, just as fast as he’d gone for the big smooch, and Katsuki’s left to gape. He’s really not comfortable with how often Dave catches him off-guard; he’s stuttering too much, hesitating before saying things for fear of messing up, and Momo once told him how she felt around Kyouka, constantly out of her comfort zone.

Katsuki sees where this is headed with perfect clarity. He isn’t sure how to feel about it.

* * *

Finals come and they’re paired together again. At this point, Katsuki thinks Aizawa’s conspiring against him, but it’s fine. They’ll be fine. Their teamwork can be a bit shoddy at times, because Katsuki’s improved but he’s still a soloist at heart, but Dave’s always there to back him up.

They face off against Present Mic, who’s annoying but not exactly threatening. Katsuki’s learned to read Dave’s signals, and he knows to fly right at Mic as soon as Dave unlatches the metal piece covering his clock. He readies himself with a Stun Grenade, but—

Mic’s done his homework.

He screams loud enough to mess up Dave’s grip on his Quirk and startle him out of his ambush, send him flying towards a wall.

Katsuki freezes for half a second. It’s not enough to make him fail. He weighs his options: catch Mic from the front and risk a dangerous manoeuvre, try to dodge stronger short-distance attacks; or he can go for Dave, who’s been hurled far enough to land him in Recovery Girl’s office. 

A more prideful, younger Katsuki would’ve gone for the former. He chooses Dave. (He realises he always will choose Dave, but that’s a matter for another moment.)

He propels himself with quick, erratic blasts and catches Dave right before he hits the concrete. The momentum is enough to make him fall to his knees and slide a couple metres forward still, but he’s got him. Dave’s alright.

“Dude,” Dave gasps, “that was so goddang eighties MacGyver of you. Holy shit. I am swooning so fucking hard. You’re my hero.”

Before Katsuki can even ask what he means by the metaphor, Dave grabs his arm and says, “hold onto me for this. Don’t let go.”

Time stopping around you is a strange sensation. Nothing moves at all, not even the debris being kicked around by Mic’s steps towards the two of them. No more background noise. He can still hear Dave’s breath, though, and he looks down to see Dave gazing at him with his shades slid up to his forehead.

Dave’s red eyes aren’t a thing Katsuki’s entirely unaware of, but—they look nice up close. More vivid than Katsuki’s own, and so warm. So close, too, but it isn’t much of a bother.

And Dave kisses him, grips Katsuki’s arm tight even as he shifts to avoid their noses bumping together. Katsuki rolls with it, never mind the fact that he’s frozen in time during the most important exam of his academic career.

God, what would past him even say?

“Aight,” Dave breathes, lips close enough to brush against Katsuki’s. He nods in Mic’s direction. “We’re doing this, man. Let’s make this shit happen. Go.”

Katsuki goes.

Dave pushes himself a little further, keeps Mic frozen enough time to approach him. He unsheathes the Durendal and catches Mic with his guard down. A lunge aimed at his ribcage forces Mic to step back and turn around—right into Katsuki’s Stun Grenade, and the couple seconds of blinding brightness are enough for Dave to fasten the heavy handcuffs around Mic’s wrists.

“Team Bakugou and Strider, cleared,” announces a voice, and they’re—

“So good at teamwork, I am so proud of your evolution, Bakugou,” Mic sniffles. “I haven’t been this emotional in a long while. You’ve grown so much as a person! So altruistic!”

Fuck, he wishes he’d never been such a little prick. Maybe then nobody would embarrass him in front of Dave.

* * *

On his last day as an U.A. senior, Katsuki gets two things:

The first is a tsunami of congratulations from the whole school body. All Might comes up to him and compliments his ability to recognise when rescue’s more important than fighting; Mic gushes over his “heroic move” once more. Recovery Girl says she’s glad he stopped sending people to her room, and Nezu nods and smiles at him.

The second is a boyfriend, namely one Dave Strider, owner of a time warp Quirk and a stash of metres upon metres of camera film.

It’s an alright start to his post-school life, Katsuki thinks. It should be pretty fucking good from here on.

**Author's Note:**

> admit it you ship it now


End file.
